As Farm Belt political stunts go, this one stood out as a progressive dream come true. In early March, Gov. J.B. Pritzker arrived in Peoria to announce that he was giving away free food to the needy — and not just any free food.
This food would be fresh and healthy fare produced by “socially disadvantaged” local farmers across the state, the governor said. And the federal government would be picking up the program’s nearly $30 million tab.
“Illinois Eats is lifting up both ends of Illinois’ food supply chain — from our farmers to our most food-insecure residents,” Pritzker proudly proclaimed.
Maybe he should have called the program Illinois Dines and Dashes. More than two months after Pritzker made his promises, and locally produced food started flowing under the program, the state still wasn’t paying.
As the Chicago Tribune’s Karina Atkins reported, one local food organization that had given away hundreds of pounds of produce every week from small-scale Black growers was still struggling to get paid as of early June. The group’s organizer told the Tribune, “It’s been a crunch. It’s been a lot of out-of-pocket money.”
Feeding the hungry is getting increasingly difficult in America, and not only because of high grocery prices. On the national level, a political consensus between the left and right that worked for 50 years is falling apart. That could leave local groups to pick up much of the slack — and sometimes front the money — even as food insecurity increases.
Exhibit A of the broken coalition is the federal Farm Bill. Once considered must-pass legislation, especially ahead of a close national election, the Farm Bill is languishing. The political right wants to cut programs for feeding the poor. The left says to forget that, and gripes about the GOP promoting corporate-farming interests. As with many other lower-profile legislative initiatives, there’s little sign of compromise.
The 2018 Farm Bill expired last year, and Congress couldn’t get its act together then on a five-year extension. So it extended farm programs for another year. That year is almost up, and with political divisions so deep, it will be no surprise if Congress again comes up dry.
At first blush, some Americans might be OK with scrapping the Farm Bill altogether, especially given its mammoth $1.5 trillion cost over 10 years. In the past, rural lawmakers voted “yes” mainly to secure fat government checks for wealthy farmers in their states, among other agriculture-related subsidies, while urban lawmakers voted “yes” to fund programs like SNAP, also known as food stamps, as well as conservation measures.
Today, House Republicans have advanced a draft Farm Bill that would cut $30 billion from SNAP programs over a decade, while increasing subsidies for producers and landowners. As Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack accurately observed, the GOP bill would undermine the farm-food coalition that traditionally has united behind farm bills and raises “the real possibility of being unable to get a Farm Bill through the process.”
Tempting as that might sound, the 900-page legislation covers programs that it’s hard to imagine America going without. Besides farm subsidies and food stamps, would America really be better off leaving its farm sector unprotected from catastrophes? Or eliminating international food aid? Scrapping research into food production? Protecting its forests and other vulnerable land?
How about funding farm credit and marketing? That might not sound so enticing, unless you’re Gov. Pritzker. It was, after all, through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that Pritzker got the federal grants to move forward with his Peoria dream come true.
According to the feds, the state is supposed to be using the money to purchase food from socially disadvantaged farmers at fair market value, then distribute it through food banks and other nonprofits to communities in need at no cost. Indeed, at his Peoria event in March, Pritzker gave thanks for “the cooperation and support” of the Agriculture Department.
After that, all he had to do was start shelling out the federal cash. Instead, Illinois has been putting on a show of inefficiency.
As the Tribune reported, the Agriculture Department is funding similar programs from coast to coast, in every state except Wyoming. Most have had their programs up and running for a while — and that includes distributing the promised funds.
Wisconsin, for example, announced a funding agreement with the federal government in August 2022 and by the end of last year it had delivered $1.4 million worth of food.
Illinois reached a funding agreement only two months later than Wisconsin, the Tribune reported, but it didn’t finalize contracts with food distributors until this spring. And then it expected them to pay out the money before eventually getting repaid. Nothing like an IOU from the Land of Lincoln to fill a vendor with confidence.
Further, the delays tripped up the Black, first-generation and veteran farmers who had ramped up production in anticipation of Illinois’ overdue announcement. As the Tribune reported, food was left to spoil and hungry families to wait.
At the rate Illinois is going, dysfunctional federal lawmakers might just get their act together and pass a new Farm Bill before the state finally gets this program fully in gear. Get a move on, Governor.
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